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Relay Peak and Mount Houghton

The Vitals: Elevation change 1500 feet - Peak 10,400
click here for topo map click here for the Relay Peak Gallery

The skin to Relay Peak is long (five miles) but really quite easy. It is a very steady uphill along an old road that is now the Tahoe Rim Trail. The few turns we made when we got there, though very good, hardly justified the length of the hike in. This wouldn't always be the case, however. In this case much of the upper part of the peaks and ridgeline had been scoured by east winds, greatly reducing the amount of good turns. Additionall, most everything under Relay Peak had been hammered by snowmobiles, which were everywhere. That left the belly of Mount Houghton as the only good turns, and the terrain there leaves a bit to be desired. The bright side was that the way out is almost completely downhill, if only slightly. The entire tour of ten miles only took three hours. In fairness there were some decent exposures to be had if we spent more time looking. They were all rather short though. It seems like this would be a great place to come and camp where you could spend a day doing a bunch of short laps on the small exposures. There was also some fantastic looking terrain on the Northwest side of Relay Peak that could warrant future attention.